


The Wages of Sin

by phantisma



Category: Justified
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 18:15:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/612762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantisma/pseuds/phantisma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sticky Kentucky summer, tent revival, before Raylan left home, before Boyd went in the army...the almost sin that would have changed everything...but didn't...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wages of Sin

The air is still, too heavy with the thick heat of summer to do more than lay sticky and stifling on his skin, making his shirt press wet against his back though the only movement he’s made in more than an hour is to raise his hand to pour beer into his mouth. Even the bugs are quiet, nothing moving in the holler ‘cept the preacher in the tent somewhere behind him, back up over the hill, in the pasture, his voice lifting above the cloying heat and drifting toward the secluded place where Raylan lays stretched out, leaning against a tree.

He finishes the first of the beers he stole from his father, secreted in the trunk of his mother’s car when she demanded he accompany her to the meetin’, determined to save his soul from the same damnation his father was destined for. Raylan had dragged his feet some, but it was mostly for show, because it was expected that he would. He waited until the revival was well underway before he slipped out of the tent, knowing she was too caught up in the goings on to notice.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe…it was more a matter of believing god didn’t need folk yelling at him and carrying on the way they do, and knowing Boyd was somewhere in that crowded tent biding his time just the same. He retrieved his three secreted bottles of beer and slipped away into the shadows, over the rise and down toward the creek bed.

Boyd’s mama clearly had a better grip on him than Raylan’s. He pops the top on his second beer, flipping the cap down toward the water. He can hear footsteps behind him, subtle and slow, hesitant. Raylan doesn’t move. It’s too much work in this god forsaken heat, he just listens as Boyd gets closer.

“You aught to be ashamed of yourself, Raylan.” Boyd says as he lowers himself down beside Raylan, depositing his own three pilfered beers next to the remaining full one and the empty bottle. “Your mama will surely be missing you.”

Raylan laid his head back against the tree. “Not for at least an hour yet.”

“And when she smells the beer on your breath?”

Raylan’s smile was slow and lazy. “Blame you for it.”

Boyd didn’t respond, his legs kicking out down the incline toward the water as he opened his own bottle and took a long, deep drink. Raylan watched the way he tilted his head back, the way his Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed, the skin pink with heat and dotted with sweat.

“Ain’t missin’ much anyway.” Raylan said as he finally looked away, his eyes picking out the bend in the creek that led to the swimming hole a ways down the holler, where the bottom dropped to nearly ten feet and the water stilled. If he thought he could get dry before getting in the car with his mama to go home, he’d be tempted to just go get wet, break the heat a little, kill the fire burning through him for things he wasn’t supposed to think about.

Quiet settles around them as Boyd catches up, finishing off a beer and dropping the bottle beside Raylan’s. The preacher’s voice rises and falls, railing at the gathered throng of overheated congregants about sin and the devil, about the evils of drink and gambling. Shouts of “Amen” dot the cadence, and Raylan knows them that speak out are likely the most guilty of the sins the preacher decries.

Raylan finishes his second beer and nods. He feels Boyd’s eyes and turns his head. There’s a hunger in those eyes Raylan doesn’t think anything will ever fill. It’s something he understands. Spend enough hours in the dark with a man, you get to know the hunger inside them. Spend enough hours with that hunger, it gets inside you.

“You decide what the future holds for Raylan Givens?” Boyd asks, the lilt to his voice inflecting the words with the illusion of meaning Raylan can’t be sure of.

He crosses his long legs and considers the question. They’d both talked about getting out of the holler, out of Kentucky, but no one believed either of them would. “Gotta be somewhere better than this.” Raylan says with a long sigh.

“Saw the army recruiter today.” Boyd says after a long silence.

It’s not a big surprise, though something in Raylan’s chest tightens a little. “Gonna go be all that you can be, Boyd?” Raylan asks, the bite in his bitter somewhat lacking.

“Might be. Told him I’d think about it.”

They’re quiet again, listening to the sound of the preacher’s voice stealing through the air.

They both finish their last beer and Raylan’s thinking about getting up and making his way back, to sit in the back of the tent so he can pretend he never really left, but before he can move to stand, Boyd moves, fluid and limber and suddenly straddling Raylan’s legs, holding him down.

“Boyd?” His every cell is on alert, his body taught with tension, uncertain whether he was about to get hit or something even more damaging.

“Tell me you haven’t thought about it, Raylan.”

Boyd’s skin is hot, his breath ghosting over Raylan’s lips as he leans in, his hands dragging up Raylan’s arms. The heat of his groin moves against Raylan’s and the fire pumping through his veins burns a little hotter, the need in his stomach just a little tighter. “Thought about what?” Raylan asks breathlessly, afraid to move, afraid to be the first one to say something that crosses the line…that line that once they cross it can’t be come back from…the line that might just lead to one of them on the wrong side of fists and guns and leaving in ways that don’t include round trip tickets.

“Sin.” Boyd answers, the word filling Raylan’s mouth, though Boyd’s lips hadn’t yet touched his.

“Sin.” Raylan repeats, his eyes closing. He can almost imagine closing that last minute distance, tasting the beer in Boyd’s mouth. Almost…but then just as fast, Boyd is gone, his hand grasping Raylan’s to pull him to his feet, offering him a stick of gum to chase away the scent of beer on his breath.

“Best get yourself on out of Kentucky, Raylan, before your proclivities lead you down a dangerous path.” Boyd retrieved his beer bottles and headed up the hill.

Raylan couldn’t say he was wrong. He retrieved his own bottles, adjusting his jeans around an uncomfortable situation in his lower regions and headed up the hill behind Boyd.

No, Boyd Crowder wasn’t wrong, and as Raylan dumped his bottles in the trash can outside the tent and slipped in to sit in the back row of folding chairs as the congregation sang the final hymn, Raylan knew the truth. It was time to get the hell out of Harlan and away from Boyd Crowder for good.


End file.
